Residents of Sand Pit and Red Village in Onderneeming on the Essequibo Coast are calling on the relevant authorities to listen to their cries for help with the deplorable conditions they are enduring, including the lack of potable water.
Of grave concern to those in Red Village, is the dumping of waste from the Suddie Hospital near their community as they fear that this would create a health crisis in the area.
“The children are picking up old needles and playing with them and when it rains, water from the dumpsite run down right into the canal where people bathe, wash and some even drink from,” Sand Pit resident Leroy Norton told Stabroek News yesterday.
Norton noted that most of the persons living in the Red Village were relocated there from various areas on the Essequibo and many are very poor and are unable to help themselves. The houses in the area were built by Food for the Poor.
Last Saturday, the residents invited Alliance Force Change (AFC) parliamentarian Trevor Williams and other members of the party, Neilson Mc Kenzie and Ivan Bentham, to visit the area and listen to their concerns. A concerned Trevor Williams told Stabroek News that it was very upsetting for him to see the conditions under which the residents are living and he hopes they would receive some much needed assistance soon.
Resident Christopher Williams said the “situation is deplorable” pointing out that he sources rain water and when it is not raining he is forced to purchase water at $2,000 a tank. Those who cannot afford a black tank or are unable to purchase the water are forced to drink water from a “filthy” pond, he said.
Some of the residents in the area have since banded themselves into an organisation and are committed to fighting for their rights as they indicated if they do not “get up and get” no one is going to do anything for them.
“We are not playing politics we just want to be able to live properly and that is what we are asking for,” Christopher Williams, who has been living in the area for the last ten years, said.
“It is not politics it is reality,” he said.
He said on many occasions they confronted the regional authorities about dumping the hospital waste but their words fell on deaf ears. Last year, the residents said, they had invited Channel 9 visit the area and listen to their complaints. But according to Christopher Williams, the authorities “got word about the visit and run and burn the waste.”
Christopher Williams said that on some occasions when the waste is being taken to the dump some would fall out of the back of the truck and children would innocently pick up items and play with them.
“The canal is atrocious but when there is no rain the poor people sometimes have to hire vehicles and go down there to wash their clothes and to bathe,” he said.
Christopher Williams said the roads also in the area are a big problem disclosing that the loam road is unbearable in rain or sunshine.
“It is an awful situation. When the rain fall you have problems because you skin messing up and when sun shining the dust so much with them big trucks driving on it that when you walk on it you don’t look good when you reach where you going,” he said.
He indicated that just before elections last year one of the roads was resurfaced, but with the present rainy situation the “road crumbling like biscuit.”
He said when they complain a “man with a grader would come and walk back and forth and grade the road and then he gone and tomorrow is back to the same thing.
“It is really painful for people, it is stressful for us.”
Some 3,000 residents live in the two communities.
‘A lot of blood bags’
According to Norton, who is the chairman of the Sand Pit Policing group, last Saturday he visited the dumpsite in the company of the members of the AFC and the stench was of such magnitude they were forced to cover their noses.
“I couldn’t take it. If you see the waste! And I see a lot of blood bags and so on, it was not nice to see,” he said.
He explained that there are over 100 houses in the Red Village community but there is no electricity and at present no water supply. Norton said while a well system was set up in the area the engine used to pump up the water was of inferior quality and it has been down since early last year and there has been no move to get it fixed. As such the residents continue to suffer.
Norton said recently the policing group held a meeting and residents from the Red Village area attended and complained about the children playing with the needles found in the hospital waste.
“It is a very frightening situation. It is stink! And we see some bones in the area we don’t know what sort of bones they are. And then the water from the area would seep into the canal that people are using.
“And the road is terrible, the dust is too much and now we have to deal with the mud.”
He recalled that some years ago the residents had blocked the road, which is the access road some companies use to get to the sand pit in the area. The regional authorities had promised then that they would have closed the road in the rainy season.
“They did it for a few times but you know the contractors; them bigger than the government and them open back the road and now it don’t close.
“If you try to do something then you are deemed as anti-government,” the man said angrily adding that people “have to stand up for their rights.”
‘Can’t dress up’
Meanwhile, Jocelyn Layne also complained about the state of the road especially the loam road. She said that the women in the area cannot “dress up” and walk down the road because by the time they reach where they are going they are “not good to look at.” The woman noted that when the big trucks pass the dust is so much that pedestrians cannot see.
“And when you grease your hair all the red dust does leave stick up in it and you does have to dust it out and clean off the dust off you skin when you reach where you going,” she added.
The woman also said that persons are forced to keep their homes closed during the sunny season because of the dust. During the rainy season one cannot use the road comfortably either, she said.
She said it is difficult for the school children especially those who live in Red Village. Parents who can’t afford to send their children to school in hire cars are forced to keep them home.
“And when it is sunny, you have to change the children clothes everyday; and ma’am, some people can’t afford that,” she said.
Layne recalled that some time last year they blocked the road during the rainy season, “but them call the police and a whole truck load with police come with guns and me don’t like police so I tell them open the road.
“It is nice at all. It is very filthy, you know, like if it is pig living here; that is how the government have us living,” the woman who has been living in Sand Pit for 15 years said.
Another resident, Vibert Layne, who has been living in Sand Pit for 21 years, concurred that the road is in a “terrible condition.” He said that it was only last year they got electricity but still there is no potable water.
